As my childhood passed in the cities of the Balkans;
Each moment was a yearning, a flame that I felt.
In my heart, there was the melancholy that made Byron wretched,
Even at that age, I roamed the mountains, my dreams left speechless...
I inhaled the free air of the Rakovica plains,
I felt the passion of my raider ancestors,
Each summer, a centuries-long gallop toward the north...
An echo of it remained in my chest, a lingering murmur...
When the army was defeated, when the entire homeland stood in mourning,
Each night in my dreams, a conqueror's illusion arose.
The remnants of migrations, feelings filled with sorrow...
The waters flowing from beyond the mournful borders,
Always rushed within me along with that illusion,
I came to know the taste of infinity on the horizon!
One day, I said, "I want neither land nor love anymore!"
I set off into exile, wandering land after land;
I went to the final realm, the earth’s frontier,
The vast sea’s salt still lingers on like a tear!
At the edge of the West, from the last shore, in tumult
A moment of tide, the sky was covered in lead,
I saw the sea— that dragon with a thousand heads;
I saw its beautiful body, cloaked in emerald skin,
Shivering with sharp tremors moment after moment;
I gazed and understood— it was that dragon coming to life.
Oh, how fiercely it surged from the endless horizon!
How suddenly it gathered itself and roared!
Every sail, every ship fled to the harbors,
The vast arena, the entire spectacle, belonged to it alone!
It stood there by itself— rebellious, its heart bleeding,
Opening a thousand cavernous mouths, howling long and deep...
I sensed, like an old companion, its majestic sorrow!
On that day of the tide, I stood face to face with your soul,
I listened to your lament, oh eternally tormented sea!
I felt that, in this exile, my soul and yours are one,
No beautiful shore could soothe this pain, I knew;
This ache is an unending thirst.
Translated by: Mehmet Barın Erturan
Click for the original text